By all accounts, independent website Television Without Pity has had a phenomenal influence on television writing. An October 2002 New York Times Magazine feature by Marshall Sella acknowledged it as "a name producers know extremely well," a site whose "opinions carry real weight among the producers and writers who fashion many of the most popular programs on television." It has "a voice on the studio lots, and a surprisingly loud one at that," according to a January Guardian article, which lists Aaron Sorkin as a regular reader. The Times piece even reported that Sorkin wrote an entire episode of "The West Wing" to paint as "obese shut-ins" the kind of people who read TWoP, which Sorkin felt had been too harsh toward his work. "Sites like TWoP may have more power than even their creators realize," wrote Sella. Considering that one of the creators of TWoP was quoted as holding her site directly responsible for "Dawson's Creek's" Dawson becoming "almost bearable," that is a good deal of power.
For all the ink that the site has gotten, though, surprisingly little has been said about its actual criticism. It's often touted as a sort of democratic voice of the fans. The Times article suggested that it's a factor in making television "an interactive medium at last." And one can probably guess from all the publicity that the writing is sharp-edged, or as TWoP itself might prefer, "snarky" — the site's motto is "Spare the snark, spoil the networks." In the Guardian article, one of the site's founders recounted an exchange with a writer/producer: "One of our questions to him was, 'Why does your show suck?'"
And that sums up the main problem with TWoP. It boasts a stable of writers ("recappers," as they call themselves) who are attentive to the finest detail, dizzyingly adept at dropping pop cultural references and just plain funny, and the same can be said for many of those who post in its forums as well. But the TWoP sensibility often cultivates exactly the wrong qualities in these talented people. Their influence, if it's as great as the site's press claims, is not necessarily a good one, for hard-core fans or anyone else.
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," along with "The West Wing," is quite frequently mentioned in conjunction with TWoP's influence. It makes sense — "Buffy" is a cult phenomenon whose success depends on a core group of fans. After its series finale today, TWoP will have recapped all 144 episodes of the show.
Let's take a look at some moments from the 14-page recap of the "Buffy" episode "Touched," which aired on May 6.
We start out with a conversation between "Ace" (the recappers all write under pseudonyms) and someone named "Ash," who isn't a "Buffy" recapper but who, we can pick up from context, is sitting in Ace's den. In nine lines of dialogue, they establish that the character Andrew has left town, after the possibility that Ace killed him is ruled out. We then learn that Ash has been told to leave the den, and that Ace does not care about this show. (Aggressive not-caring is a kind of sport at TWoP. A search of the site for "Yawn." results in 414 instances.)
Later, we are told again that Ace does not care about the show, and also that the plot this season is "fuckin' lame." The main villain, a preacher named Caleb, is always referred to as "Father Malarkey," which may or may not be a reference to the fact that the actor also played a character named "Mal" on the short-lived "Firefly," whose creator, Joss Whedon, is also the creator of "Buffy."
Ace doesn't like any of the characters on this show anymore.
Ace decides that she has learned something about herself in the writing of these recaps. Then Sep, one of the other recappers, calls her on the phone. The events on screen remind them of a topic they had in the forums once.
Ace feels that the tedium of her recapping job makes even thetruth.com ads seem "compelling." Sars (really), one of the site's founders, disagrees. "No it doesn't," she writes in an editor's note.
Ace and Sep have a written dialogue.
Finally, Ace very much dislikes the end of the episode, in which Buffy's plan to attack the villain turns out to be a good one. "How much do I hate this?" she asks, rhetorically. "How much do I loathe that the script has proven Buffy right and tacitly validated her piss-poor leadership skills? ... Fuck that shit, yo."
This is only the most recent "Buffy" recap as of this writing, but many of TWoP's major flaws are on display: Strong feelings passed off as criticism. Ranting passed off as humor. Cutesy made-up character names that make no sense unless you've memorized every prior recap, as well as recaps of tangentially related shows. And constant reminders that the recapper has friends, and they're all really cool, and some of them even write for this awesome website that snarks on TV shows.
None of which is to say that this recap has no redeeming features. Ace points out some gaping plot holes, and gets off a few good jokes. "Was the Styrofoam, X-Acto knife, and spray-paint budget exceeded earlier this season?" she snipes in response to the mention of some stone tablets that are never shown onscreen. In most of the site's recaps, the funny edges out the cloying.
But TWoP's problems go beyond writers engaging in a little chummy banter and first-person complaining. It's not just about their tone — it's about their tone-deafness. If TV producers and writers were actually hanging on this site's every recap, they would produce consistent work, but keep the risk-taking to a minimum.
Here's one example: In the third-season episode "The Zeppo," faithful supporting character Xander finally gets his own save-the-town story, while the "main" save-the-world story, involving Buffy and other friends, is played as a fluffy send-up of similar plots in the series. But recapper Couch Baron is not one for the gentle satire. "I officially don't care about this apocalypse subplot," he writes about said send-up — it's not scary enough. At the end, when a character reverentially describes the harrowing near-apocalypse, it's to poke fun at the self-important apocalypse-stoppers in contrast with Xander. Couch Baron isn't having it, though; he's still convinced that this is a failed attempt at straightforward horror. "See, now they want us to take that subplot seriously again. Whatever."
Similar digs at another episode told from an unconventional point of view led a poster on the Joss Whedon fan site Whedonesque to sigh, "('Buffy') is not a documentary. Every episode has a theme and a tone." But TWoP's recappers, and forum posters, demand absolute consistency. And it's not only "a wizard did it" continuity errors that they focus on. Any seemingly anomalous or even unlikable action by a core character is immediately seized upon as a mischaracterization. In the third-season "Dead Man's Party," when Buffy's friends harshly take her to task for running away from home, Couch Baron sees their insensitivity as a major flaw in the episode, rather than an accurate portrayal of how a bunch of teenagers might act. Self-centered behavior on Buffy's part earns her the sobriquet "Little Miss It's-All-About-Me." Characters must be rational and sympathetic at all times.
So if TWoP wants to claim credit for Dawson's bearability, it's only fair that they accept the blame for the new "Buffy" character Kennedy. Kennedy was introduced this season as a love interest for the witch Willow after Willow's girlfriend Tara was killed. When Kennedy first appeared, she was tough, outspoken and decidedly nonwhiny. She stuck up for Buffy when the teenage pre-Slayers Buffy was training unfairly questioned her. And the TWoP crowd hated Kennedy. Many of the forum participants complained that she had been "shoved down (their) throats," that she was too perfect, designed to make viewers take an instant liking to her.
Essentially, she seemed to have been written by focus group. A focus group of snarky Internet fans, maybe, who have more power than even they realize.
— Julia Lipman (julia@flakmag.com)
